Turkish-Greek differences ‘solved in a week if Turkey joined EU’

GREECE and Turkey could resolve their age-old differences in a week if Ankara got the green light to join the European Union, the chief of Turkey’s armed forces told a Greek newspaper in an interview yesterday.

Relations between Greece and Turkey have warmed considerably since the two nearly went to war over an uninhabited Aegean Sea outcrop in 1996. But tensions remain over Cyprus and territorial issues.

“Unfortunately we are hostages of a historical problem. There are national issues like islands, airspace and the militarisation of the islands that we view differently,” Ankara’s Chief of the General Staff Hilmi Ozkok told the Athens daily Eleftherotypia.

“I think that negotiations are going well and if Turkey’s accession into the EU goes ahead, these problems will be solved in a week.”

The EU will report next month on Turkey’s chances of joining the bloc. Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen has said the report would stress Turkey’s progress but also persistent differences over Cyprus, which is due to join the bloc next May 1.

“Joining the EU would help tremendously with solving both the Cyprus issue and the problems in the Aegean,” Ozkok said.

“Cyprus is of great strategic importance and of course we want to see a Cyprus from which we can defend Turkey … And it is not a new issue. It has been like this for decades,” Ozkok said.

The EU’s November report on Turkey will be followed by a final report in late 2004, and if Ankara meets a series of targets on economic and political reform and human rights, the EU may then set a date for the start of accession talks. (R)

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.